A lot of work ahead as Solomons comes to terms with flood

Transcript

About a fifth of Honiara's population is living in evacuation centres set up in the capital following last week's devastating floods in Solomon Islands.

Disaster officials hope improving weather will mean some people start to trickle back to their homes, but say no one will be forced back to houses that are unsafe.

They say the major focus now is to ensure the immediate needs of the people are met.

Bridget Tunnicliffe reports.

23 people are confirmed dead and more than 20 are still unaccounted for. About 10,000 have sought shelter in 24 evacuation centres around the capital Honiara but officials believe that number will start decreasing slowly.  The Chairman of the National Disaster Committee, Melchior Mataki, says there were some initial logistical problems getting food rations to the centres because some roads and bridges were damaged.

MELCHIOR MATAKI: But now food supplies are now going up to all the evacuation centres and on top of that too some of the evacuation centres were established even without our knowledge and so the number kept on increasing even up until yesterday.

The National Disaster Management Office says water, clothing, and toiletries are all needed urgently.

A Seventh Day Adventist group is providing hot meals to people in need. Dorcas Welfare, which is an arm of the church, is being funded by the government to provide food to people in evacuation centres. Pastor Johnnie Tango says the church has enough resources to feed people twice a day but meals will be very basic.

JOHNNIE TANGO: The Dorcas Welfare Societies are also working together with the youth clubs of each local church, so what we are doing is that we are calling volunteers to Dorcas and Dorcas Welfare members and then we are mobilising our youth in our local churches to help us out on this.

Pastor Johnnie Tango says Solomon Islands needs international assistance to support those in need.

New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister has announced just over one million US dollars in additional funding for relief supplies, and to help restore health, water and sanitation systems. Murray McCully says New Zealand will also consider a wider recovery package once long term needs are assessed. He says in this New Zealand will be heavily influenced by what Australia is planning.

MURRAY McCULLY: I have spoken with Julie Bishop the Australian Foreign Minister today just to make sure we are on the same page in that respect and they have given us an indication of what their thinking is for the time immediately ahead. We have I think seem over a period of time that little problems can become big problems in the Solomon Islands so it is important that New Zealand and Australia are attentive to the sort of challenges that exist in the Solomons and make sure that they don't become a point of social disorder.

Hygiene kits from the Australian Red Cross have started to be delivered with sanitation a concern in the evacuation centres, due to the lack of water. Andrew Catford of World Vision says the agency began distributing its standard packs to the centres yesterday.

ANDREW CATFORD: It is a little different to what we use in other occasions because this is an urban setting but particularly tarpaulins so people can have additional shelter, rope to help with that. But also water is an issue, so jerry cans.
 

Dr Catford says World Vision has also set up special spaces for children within the centres as they can be the most traumatised of victims.

Authorities estimate 52,000 people have been affected in some way by the flooding - 12,000 in Honiara alone, and 40,000 on the rest of Guadalcanal island. Volunteer Service Abroad's programme manager in Solomons, Alexa Funnell, says people are still coming to terms with the level of destruction and loss of life that no one really anticipated. She says there is a lot of work ahead.

ALEXA FUNNELL: There might be a veneer of normality in the actual centre of town, in terms of shops reopening, you know, roads being tidied up, trees being pushed to the side and rubbish starting to be collected, small things like that, but you know that's just the surface. I think it is going to take many many months before things actually get anywhere near normal.

The Chairman of the National Disaster Committee, Melchior Mataki, says the major focus now is attending to the immediate needs of people. He says while there are thousands of people in evacuation centres, many of their homes are still standing and the intention is to progressively move people back to their houses where possible.

Oxfam's country director, Katie Greenwood, says about a fifth of the capital's population is living in the centres and says some people are too afraid to return home.

KATIE GREENWOOD: This disaster happened in an unprecedented way, it was so fast, there was something like 450 millimetres of rain that was dumped in a 24 hour period upstream and that really came down in a wave over the community, it's an incredibly frightening thing to have happen.

Melchior Mataki says it will only happen if houses are safe to go back to.

MELCHIOR MATAKI: We would only do that following a proper assessment, we won't be forcing people to leave the evacuation centres, we would look at each cases independently and make an assessment.

Melchior Mataki says then they can deal more effectively with people whose homes were completely destroyed.